Only 6 days left in our Wild Olive Tees Fundraiser

Hey Ladies.....It's time to Get Your Verse On with a Wild Olive Tee…..if you don’t know about Wild Olive Tees you really have to check them out. (Sorry guys, they’re just for your lady and your kiddos) Imagine a great fabric, cool design and scripture to boot.  I stumbled across these tees a couple years ago and my collection started.  They’re not just great tees. I mean they ARE great tees but it was the heart behind them that hooked me. You see Wild Olive was created by three amazing mommas that LOVE the Lord and LOVE the orphan as well. One of these ladies I met through the bloggy world. She’s a fellow adoptive mom of ten. Yep, that’s right, ten kiddos. Six of which are special needs babes from China. What an inspiration she has been to me and to so many others.

Wild Olive supports orphan care through An Orphan’s Wish in China and Sixty Feet in Uganda. Aside from the tees being great and 10% of all profits going to orphan care they are now helping adoptive families with their fundraising.

Wild Olive Tees has selected OUR family to be featured from 8/20/11 to 10/15/11. Woo Hoo : ) !!!

So, what does that mean? Well, that means that anyone that wishes to buy a really cool tee while at the same time helping to bring our sweet Josiah home can do so during this time. Shopping AND helping to bring an orphan home….sounds good, right? Not the least of which you’re spreading God’s word. 

Ok, so here’s what you do. You go to the Adoption Fundraising Tees page of Wild Olive. Pick out your tee or tees : ) (don’t’ forget to get one for your little one). When you’re checking out put our family code BRANIFF0820 in the coupon code section. You can also put our name in the comment section. Now the coupon code doesn't discount the tee like a coupon code normally would, but it does ensure that a portion of the sale goes directly to bringing our little guy home.

We are honored to be a part of what Wild Olive is doing in the fields of the fatherless.

Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. James 1:27

We are so grateful for the support of our friends and family. The Lord has entrusted us with much and it has required much of us. We know that we couldn’t have done it without YOU. The Lord has used all of you for His glory to bring our children home. Whether you’ve supported our adoptions financially or through prayer, please know that our children will be eternally grateful. Because of you they know the love of a family and the love of our heavenly Father. A very heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you, but to God be the Glory.

Please consider passing this on to your friends and family.

Spread the Word. Spread the Love. Spread God’s Glory to the Nations……

Much Love,

Rob and Lisa

The park, a picnic and family time....what a beautiful day

"I am the first daughter that grew in Momma's heart"

Izzy is trying to find her place lately. Her place in our family. I'm not sure if it's an adoption thing. Probably is. Or maybe if she was one of four bio children she would be doing the same thing. I'm not sure. It's something she is struggling with lately. She's not our first born. Not our first daughter. Not sure why it's so important to be the first, but it seems to be to her. We love all of our children so much. It makes me sad to see her apparently longing for a "special" place in the family. For the longest time she was special in her eyes because she was the only child that came into our family through adoption. Then Mei Mei came home and that changed. So, a couple weeks ago we were in bed talking about China Mommy. The conversation goes there a lot these days. It's painful. It makes me very sad to know that she's trying to figure this all out. I'm very honest with her but in a delicate way. The talk quickly became somber because she asked if we had China Mommy's address so that she could send her a card. When I told her that I didn't know China Mommy and had no way of getting in touch with her she seemed shocked by that. I've never told her that we did know her but maybe she just assumed that we had met when we were in China. She said "well, that's ok. I'll see her in heaven one day and I'll give her the cards I made." Uhhhh....gut wrenching. She said it so sweet and matter of fact. Like that was a given. This is the part I can't stand about adoption. Even though the Lord takes something so broken and awful and makes it beautiful by creating a family from it, it still is hard. Very hard. I want so badly to be able to let Izzy know that she was special to her birth mother. I think that she was. She wasn't abandoned till she was 10 months old and very ill, so I believe that her parents loved her very much. I don't know that for fact and I never will. I choose to believe that for Izzy. For me. I treasure this little one and I believe that her birth parents did too. Mari that was abandoned the day she was born I also choose to believe that her parents loved her too. It's too hard to think of it any differently. So, in the midst of this heavy conversation Izzy looks right at me at says "Momma, Jessi was your first daughter right?"....."Yes, Jessi is our first daughter" ...."And Rymo is your first son, right?"......"Yep, that's right." ..... "and Mari and I grew in your heart right?" ......"Right baby, you and Mei Mei grew right here in my heart"........then she sits up in the bed with a huge smile on her face "Wait a minute......but I am the FIRST daughter that grew in your heart, RIGHT?" she yells. Knowing Mari is in the bed next to us and is almost sleeping I quietly say "yes, honey you both grew in my heart but you grew there first." She was so excited and she yells to Mari, " Mari, I am the first daughter that grew in Momma's heart. Can you believe that ?" Oh, man. I'm thinking here we go. Now I'll be in Mari's bed next trying to make her not feel bad about not being the first. Not to mention that Izzy has completely woken her up now. My sweet Mari. The things that rattle Izzy just roll off of her. I'm so grateful she's like that. Two drama queens in the house would be a bit much. She just smiled over at Izzy and says " Yeah, Iz that means I am the next born in Momma's heart...Yeah. Momma, I'm the next born in your heart. That's great news Iz" and she rolled back over and went to sleep. Whew....I love that sweet pea so much. Thank you Mari for being so easy going.

And thank you Lord for the first daughter born in my heart. I just love her over the moon.

We're leading a group of couples through Radical by David Platt on Friday nights. It hasn't been an easy book for most of them. Shoot....this is my third time reading it and it's still not easy. I'm convicted by something every time I go through it, but nothing more than this quote "orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces. It is easier to pretend they’re not real before you hold them in your arms. But once you do, everything changes." Nothing has rocked me quite like that realization. It will be my life's mission to make sure that I never forget who they are.

I do have a couple beautiful little reminders though.......

 

and one more little cutie on the way

 

and my heart will break till they are all ORPHANED NO MORE......

Get Your Verse On for Josiah.....

We only have four weeks left to our Wild Olive Tee fundraiser....Check out the details here

Pinkalicious

We took the girls to see Pinkalicious The Musical today at our local theater. It was their first musical and they absolutely loved it. It was quite precious to see a couple hundred little girls all decked out in pink complete with tiaras and wands.....so sweet.

B.A.K.E. Fest 2011

On Saturday we went to a fundraiser for Children's Hospital (can't say enough wonderful things about CH....we love them). The girls had their hair painted like ladybugs...so sweet. They loved the Shetland Ponies. The only thing was that Texas Roadhouse sponsored the food and it turns out that Mari is PETRIFIED of giant dancing Armadillos...should've known, right?  After the Goofy incident at Hong Kong Disneyland. Remember when Goofy tapped her on the shoulder and she freaked out. All day long she kept telling us that "Pluto bit her". I spent the rest of the day shielding her from Mickey and Minnie and trying to explain that Pluto wasn't even there and Goofy didn't bite you. It was a tap....Well, it all came rushing back as I had to get out of the path of a giant yellow line dancing Armadillo. After that she was glued to either Rob or I. Izzy on the other hand wanted to go dance with him....typical of Izzy. Anyway, it was nice to be a part of helping to raise money for a great organization. We have been blessed beyond measure by Children's Hospital.